babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.

The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring

The video looks at Otpor, a revolutionary training school that was instrumental in the toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. Their logo is the logo of the Egyptian revolution.

Gene Sharp is the American author of the "revolution guide book" that was used in the recent revolutions to topple US-backed dictators. He has been branded by Hugo Chavez and the Russian regime as a "rabble rouse in the employ of the CIA."

Leaders within the Arab revolutions, as well as leaders of the revolutions of Eastern Europe in the 1990s, maintain that they were not coerced by free-market ideologies.

Believe this video or not, there remain forces within the Jasmine Revolutions that seek to blunt the effects of the peoples' struggle.

In the name of GOD, son, don't be bashin' gladio terrierists round here! You'll be labelled a heretic, gutted and strung-up by your chestnuts at dawn. Ye might as well just fall on your own sword, if ya know what I mean.

It is a little disheartening to see a report like this dismissed because it doesn't endorse the political well-wishing we project onto the Arab world. Are we content to simply accept that these linked instances of revolution were solely the result of popular dissent? How many of us towed the party line on 9/11? Yet there is compelling evidence and a formidable movement that suggests sinister forces were at work.

I don't necessarily endorse these ideas, but the video makes a considerable argument. It doesn't only espouse coincidental theory, but causal as well. The video shows current and previous revolutionary leaders confessing to the use of the revolutionary book written by Sharpe. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if this book was responsible for the ousting of US-friendly dictators, that Sharpe would at the very least by under FBI harassment? Yet there he is, fine as day, with only a secretary as his guide. Bradley Manning was imprisoned for far less. I don't mean to suggest that this is an irrefutable bit of evidence, but it is definitely provocative. If we have the confessions of these leaders to the use of the book, and their admission that Otpor was an organizing member, then all that's left to debate is whether Otpor and Sharpe indeed further Washington's interests, knowingly or not.

Lachine Scot wrote:

So millions of people are just passive puppets to the great masters in the CIA, eh?

Puppet or not, it wouldn't be the first time the CIA effected widespread change in the face of millions. Latin America, 1980s?

Does anyone around here relize how incredibly racist it is to assume that the white American intelligence establishment has a hand in every major political event in the modern middle east?
That sound you hear is Edward Said turning over in his grave.

Don't go cutting your own throat, Dibbler, some of us made that point the first time around. Mind you, the argument that the turbanned horde cannot conceive of such western ideas as freedom from despotism without the friendly guidance of gentle whitefolk nevertheless seems to hang around.

"Any document which officially shows American involvement in an assassination is a foreign policy disaster... The second problem is that of names. They have asked for all the records of our relations with PanAm, [redacted] ITT and others. If we acknowledge a relationship, we will kill these companies and our ability to place agents and get cooperation".

Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - George Warshington

Nowhere did I explicitly state that the people of the Arab states are incapable of developing their own democratic aspirations, although I suppose that, if you want to dig, that is tacitly suggested.

At the time of my original posting, my skepticism was well entrenched. I posted this video to elicit discussion. In light of several new reports and articles I've read, that doubt has gradually given way to a benign horror at what is probably just the latest in a long line of manufactured regime changes. Regarding conspiracy theories, especially ones that gnaw at our most optimistic projections of world events, I ask what amount of evidence is required to begin the process of doubt? Consider what you know of Canadian politics. The tendency of most of us here on the forums is to doubt the coverage of the mainstream press and seek out alternative sources of information, like this website. Why does that change with regards to the Arab Spring? Why are we so eager to embrace the status quo espoused by the corporate media, but apt to disregard the dissenting views of others who poke holes in the official version?

I suppose that in this case, we would love to believe that the Arab Spring was completely spontaneous. It affirms our belief as progressives that bottom-up social change is manifest - tangible. It could be the case, somewhere, someday. But right there right now?

In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia... "I got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to face violence from the security forces ... and also how to organize to get people on the streets," Adel said of his experience with the Serbs (Center for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies).

Quote:

CANVAS participates in some workshops financed by...Freedom House, an American group which gets its money from the U.S. government. But CANVAS prefers to give Washington a wide berth, in part due to Otpor's experience. Like the entire opposition to Milosevic, Otpor took money from the U.S. government, and lied about it.

Quote:

The next idea was one the Serbs had learned from the American academic Gene Sharp, the author of From Dictatorship to Democracy...Popovic was first introduced to Sharp's ideas in the spring of 2000 by Robert Helvey, a former U.S. Army colonel who had served as defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Burma in the 1980s before becoming disillusioned with armed struggle.

Since there was no real mass organization capable of seizing power, and no program of economic reconstruction, development, and reform which could have united the efforts of larger sectors of the Egyptian population, Egypt was left to the tender mercies of the now standard CIA/National Endowment for Democracy color revolution, people power coup, or postmodern putsch.

Quote:

The Obama-Zbigniew Brzezinski foreign policy tacitly concedes that the US is now too weak, too isolated, too hated, and too bankrupt to undertake direct military attacks on the long list of countries which Bush, Cheney, and the neocons were eager to assail. The new policy of subverting existing governments and replacing them with regimes far more susceptible of being played as kamikaze puppets against the regional enemies of the United States

Confusing two divergent issues is rarely helpful in analysing geo-political situations. On the one hand we've witnessed such genuine and heartfelt sentiments being expressed by people literally putting their lives on the line, if only for the opportunity to voice an opinion at all about their long standing conditions, and on the other, we have rumour and sign of the imperium's best men being assigned to oversee and direct the various situations as best they can, which amounts to a darn good turnout indeed when considering that thus far, nothing even remotely resembling a democratic changing of the guard has taken place in any of the circumstances which unfolded during the past several months.

I am going to make a prediction. If the Jordanian monarchy (perhaps the most pro-US regime in the Arab world) collapses because of people power, and there are huge demonstrations by average Jordanians calling for the head of their Western educated, Star Trek loving King, the CIA will be blamed by babblers for the overthrow of Jordan's dictatorship.

So to make a story short, here's a concise New Middle East Obama policy. We support "our" bastards (dictators) who are sophisticated enough to beat, arrest and kill their own people in the low hundreds (Bahrain). We get slightly annoyed by "our" war on terror collaborators who crudely beat, arrest and kill their own people also in the low hundreds (Yemen). We're strongly inclined to ditch our support for unreliable, Iran-aligned dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in the high hundreds (Syria).

We unleash war - via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a weaponized arm of the United Nations - over unreliable oil-wealthy dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in alleged thousands (Libya). And we remain absolute mute about "our" monarchical bastards who pre-empt the possibility of democratic protests (Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia) or invade their neighbors to smash ongoing peaceful protests (Saudi Arabia).

I think it is more like Pres. Obama saw the writing on the wall - the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan people were going to rise up, so get on good terms with them so they will continue to deliver the oil to the USA when the dust settles. If the brutal dictators have control over their people, then fine, support them and the oil keeps flowing to the USA. Obama has to do this "dancing with Arab friendlies" very carefully.

There is another game behind all this, where "if the USA didn't do it, then China or Russia would be in there like a dirty shirt snapping up all the oil for themselves". So, America/Obama has to do whatever it takes to be the best friend of Arab nations with oil.

---

Aside: Fidel, is that an actual quote by the framer George Washington, but with a sarcastic spelling error? {Warshington}

Was "corporatism" a word used in the time of Pres. G Washington?

{RE:" Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - George Warshington

Confusing two divergent issues is rarely helpful in analysing geo-political situations. On the one hand we've witnessed such genuine and heartfelt sentiments being expressed by people literally putting their lives on the line, if only for the opportunity to voice an opinion at all about their long standing conditions, and on the other, we have rumour and sign of the imperium's best men being assigned to oversee and direct the various situations as best they can, which amounts to a darn good turnout indeed when considering that thus far, nothing even remotely resembling a democratic changing of the guard has taken place in any of the circumstances which unfolded during the past several months.

Look, the Arab Spring is not a Michael Bay action movie. The activists in various Arab states are dealing with problems that are enormously difficult to solve. I think it's unfair to insist that something momentous has not happened in Egypt simply because the blockade of Gaza has not been completely lifted RIGHT NOW! Or that they have not taken an important step towards democracy simply because military rule didn't vanish overnight. It will take some time but in the end democracy will triumph in the Arab world, and just because the people involved in the pan Arab pro-democracy resistance have failed in achieving some of their goals, it does not mean that the big, bad(and, I think, largely clueless) CIA has complete control of the movement.
Dear God! It's almost like Babblers are collectively suffering from a very bad case of political attention deficit disorder.
PS yes I know I'm sounding like one of those Soviet era spin doctors that certain people on this board would probably love to chum around with, and I apologize for that, but don't you think it's a good idea to give the decent people who overthrew these tyrannical US backed assholes some time to heal the damage wrought by decades of mismanagement before we condemn them as collaborators?

Nowhere did I label the Arab masses as collaborators. There may be collaborators among them in the revolutionary leadership, and definitely within the ruling junta. I suggest that external forces might be manipulating the proletariat. I think the evidence is more than circumstantial.

Once again, I urge everyone to think about this critically - not just project your well-wishing on the situation. The two narratives of mass struggle and interference from the intelligencia are convergent, not divergent, and it would do well to analyze this from every possible angle.

I rather think that many of us suffer from political amnesia. Does nobody remember the Contras? The Cuban terrorists operating freely on American soil? Why is it so difficult to imagine? Unless, of course, we want to believe it so bad that we're willing to forego the critical analyses we afford to everything else.

There is another game behind all this, where "if the USA didn't do it, then China or Russia would be in there like a dirty shirt snapping up all the oil for themselves". So, America/Obama has to do whatever it takes to be the best friend of Arab nations with oil.

Except that China or Russia would prolly cut a better deal with Qadaffi. British Petroleo, for instance, were pretty ruthless in Iran last century and didn't even believe that the oil revs should be shared with the Iranian people at all.

And U.S. energy companies were darned near as crooked when signing deals with Russia for oil and gas development projects at Sakhalin Island in the early 1990s. Putin decided that those contracts were created at a time when Russia was at a disadvantage economically, and so decided to raise taxes on natural resource exports across the board. That was one more reason the west claimed the Russians were "backsliding" on democracy. IOWs they were daring to user perferctly legit free market mechanisms to raise oil revenues which the gladio gang's corporate friends didn't appreciate very much. That and some issues with US and European oligarchs, and probably with CIA seed money, attempted to bribe members of the Duma in 2003 in order to slide out of paying taxes they legally owed to the government in Moscow.

Exxon and the rest signed some pretty crooked oil deals in Iraq in the 2000s. Blood for oil hounds really were after the oil in Iraq as it's right there in the ground same as Libya's lowest cost to extract oil fields. They've been right bloody bastards these mass murderers.

If you listen to some of the wishy-washy lefties on this site, there is no such thing as the corporatocracy. It's all above board, and fascism just isn't possible without goosestepping thugs and private railroad companies with fat contracts for transporting tourist class box cars loaded with old people and daycare groups to the outskirts of Kracow for "tea and delousing" on a steady basis. They just don't get it or don't want to one or the other.

---

Quote:

Noah_Scape]Aside: Fidel, is that an actual quote by the framer George Washington, but with a sarcastic spelling error? {Warshington}

Was "corporatism" a word used in the time of Pres. G Washington?

{RE:" Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - George Warshington

I made it up. It's really describing fascism according to a quote by Mussolini. he he It should begin with, Fascism should more appropriately ...

In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba?
The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

Nowhere did I label the Arab masses as collaborators. There may be collaborators among them in the revolutionary leadership, and definitely within the ruling junta. I suggest that external forces might be manipulating the proletariat.
In other words they are collaberating.
This is the problem with all these ideas about CIA medeling. They portray the arabs as at best stupid and at worst evil.

In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba? The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

You're very right that the US meddling in those countries generally didn't achieve its goals. I concede in the failure of the CIA there. That doesn't erase the fact that they did meddle and caused untold suffering. The CIA basically ruined any hope for democratization in Iran, at least in the short term. They starved the Cubans. They murdered tens of thousands of Nicaraguans. Yet that is not the official narrative we find in the American media. That's why I'm skeptical.

I think that the masses had every right to revolt. I don't endorse the meddling of any external forces. Revolution has to come from within. That's why, when I see evidence that there was a guiding hand at play, red flags immediately start popping up. What will we say when the Egyptians or the Tunisians elect a free-market racketeer as their new leader? Someone who will effect policies in stark opposition to the popular demands articulated by the revolution.

I have presented evidence here that casts doubt that the movement was completely spontaneous. I am still waiting for anything to concretely refute these claims.

In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba? The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

They've worked pretty hard to pave the way for militant Islam in the "Middle East" and Central Asia. The US and Israelis allowed a militant Hamas to form at a time when the PLO was cut off from international funding.

The US and western allies paved the way for militant Islam in Iran once their brutal dictatorship under the Shah had run its course. Muslim clerics wondered how they themselves could be deemed fit to run a country. Iran's Revolutionary Guard aided Clintonites in creating a militant Islamic base in 1990s Bosnia. They worked closely with "al-Qaeda" in achieving their goals on the edge of Eastern Europe. And the oil companies love Ahmadinejad. Every time he utters the word Israel or oil, the price of a barrel of oil skyrockets.

They crippled the Sandinistas before electing one of their neoliberal stooges who basically ran the country into the ground for years. It's all about preventing socialism and maintaining poverty and backwardness in the colonies.

US Democrats have at least had the sense to admit that they created the Gucci Mujahideen, Taliban, and even al-Qaeda. And it could just as easily have been called Saudi bin Laden with all the western aid and assistance that country has received from the west in propping up imperialism there.

Hawks in the west love militant Islam and right wing extremists in general. What they did was create another unseen enemy in Central Asia and headed by Emanuel Goldstein's protege, Elvis bin Laden.

What they fear most is legitimate political opposition on the left like the political wing of Hamas today. They fear people's revolutions and so work hard to re-install another stooge, or in the case of Egypt ensure that the old military order remains in control.

And they fear stooges like Karzai and his drug trafficking brother being woo'd away from CIA/ISI controllers by Asian leaders. Anything resembling democracy is fighting dirty as far as they are concerned. They really are working overtime to maintain empire. It's slipping away though.

Oh I'm simply making up for the five or six decades that it was entirely underused in this Northern Puerto Rico. Whether stooge, kleptocrat, hireling, toady, sycophant, I've used them all but have settled on stooge for ease of typing. Our stooges are not worth the extra keys. Only 0.18% of Canadians actually voted for our latest head stooge.

Hon. John Baird (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the reasons that Parliament voted unanimously back in March to impose sanctions against the Libyan regime and undertake a UN sanctioned mission exist today. We are there to protect the vulnerable civilian population that is under attack by its own government.

We believe the military mission is incredibly important but so too is adding humanitarian support, additional diplomatic measures and, as has been suggested by others in the House, support for good governance from the transitional council.